Listing all those Xbox Live Indie Games in our daily XBLIG Releases piece, I really can’t avoid the want to try out some of the titles that I read about and post on, XBLIG Thursday is here for us to do just that.

Sam Bayless’ platformer Gumzoobo!, by definition, is a cute little game. The name is cute, it’s on a channel where cute can get you somewhere and you play as cute zoo animals who use bubble guns to defeat robots on conquest. Adorable, and very well put together actually.

Right when I jumped into the game I was impressed with the professional touch of the game (I mention this because I’m not use to this luxury on the XBLIG channel.) The menu offered an intro option, which I selected and to my delight got a little back story on how the four zoo animals (turtle, penguin, seal and toad) banded together to defend their zoo against the invading robots. The game also offered 4-player co-op and it appears that this is actually the way the game was designed to be play. Not to say that it’s no fun single player.

Once I got into the gameplay itself, the levels instantly reminded me of the original Mario Bros. arcade game as your animal is charged with clearing a self-contained area filled with robots pacing menacingly. You do this with the help of your bubble shooter complete with gum ammo. The nice twist is that robots don’t die if you shoot them, just float around in bubbles that you must touch to burst it and destroy the robot inside.

The trial mentioned the full version packs several different types of gum to use for your bubble gun, many robot types to fight and 100+ levels in all. At only $1 (80 MS Points) it’s something I can certainly recommend based on my first impression. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must continue to try (and fail) to get my Xbox 360 to accept my crisp dollar bill.

[This is not a review. It is simply a "first impressions" based on less than an hour of gameplay.]